Modern slavery in supply chains

Councils are uniquely placed to be at the forefront of the fight against modern slavery, and are demonstrating awareness and ethical leadership by voluntarily completing modern slavery transparency statements.

Procurement of services is an important part of councils’ expenditure with, local government third party revenue expenditure totaling around £60 billion a year. Understanding our supply chains and assessing the risk to those working in it is not easy and requires commitment, support and collaboration.

The Transparency in Supply Chains Provision (TISC, s.54) of the Modern Slavery Act (MSA) requires commercial entities with an annual turnover of £36m or more to report annually on their actions to identify, prevent and mitigate modern slavery in their supply chain.

Councils are currently under no legal obligation to publish statements in compliance with the Section 54 provision. However, they are uniquely placed to be at the forefront of the fight against modern slavery and 132 councils have already voluntarily compiled theirs. The LGA is encouraging others to follow suit with a range of guidance and support for those wishing to submit a statement, including a simple aide memoire and a dynamic list of links to published council transparency statements.

Tackling modern slavery in Government supply chains

This guide is aimed at procurement and commercial practitioners at all levels who are operating in the public sector and is published, having consulted with the sector, with the support of the LGA. It advocates a risk-based approach to tackling modern slavery in government supply chains and contains guidance that can be applied to the local government sector.

Charter Against Modern Slavery
Councils from across the political spectrum have signed up to the Co-operative Party's council charter against modern slavery. Councils are leading the way with a new Charter to ensure expolitation has no place in their supply chains. The Co-operative Party's Charter against Modern Slavery goes further than existing law and guidance, committing councils to proactively vetting their own supply chain to ensure no instances of modern slavery are taking place.

Home Office consultation on transparency in supply chains: LGA submission
The Modern Slavery Act 2015 made the UK the first country in the world to require organisations to publicy report on the steps that they are taking to prevent modern slavery in their operations and supply chains. In July 2018, the Home Secretary commissioned the Independent Review of the Modern Slavery Act 2015. The final review report was published in May 2019, recommending measures such as clarifying the scope of the organisations required to report and extending the requirement to report to public sector organisations (including councils). The LGA welcomes this consultation and many of the recommendations in the Independent Review. Read our response.

The CIPS e-learning on Ethical Procurement and Supply provides introductory training on modern slavery and other ethical procurement issues. The training is currently free for CIPS members (the Home Office is in discussion with CIPS on whether this can be extended past October 2019) and currently available at a discounted rate of £5 for non-CIPS members. See the Government Commercial Function’s Knowledge Hub for instructions on how to access the discount.

Notes

According to global slavery statistics an estimated 40.3 million people were victims of modern slavery in 2016, a quarter of them children.

Home Office figures suggest there are up to 13,000 victims of modern slavery in the UK other sources suggest this is significantly higher. Slavery in the supply chain is an abuse of human rights in the pursuit of profits and the public sector has a moral duty not to indulge or tolerate it, whether deliberately or ignorantly.

The Government has not been prescriptive about the layout or specific content to be included in transparency statements. It is for this reason that the LGA does not encourage the use of templates which could lead to replicated homogenous statements or become a tick-box exercise. Instead we advocate councils take ownership, it is up to councils how you present information in the statement and how much detail you provide.

If councils want a supply chain that reflects the values of its residents they need to work towards improving transparency in its supply chains and acquiring goods and services without causing harm to others.